The first century B. C. Most of the territory now known to us as Europe was occupied by the Roman Empire. Among the inhabitants of the Europe are Germanic tribes. Theirs stage of development was rather primitive, especially if compared with the high civilization of Rome.Their tribal languages contain only Indo-European and Germanic elements. Due to Roman invasion Germanic tribes had to come into contact with Romans. Romans built roads, bridges, military camps.Here are some more examples of Latin borrowings of this period: “cup” (Lat. “cuppa”), “kitchen” (Lat. “coquina”), “mill” (Lat. “molina”), “port” (Lat. “portus”), “wine” (Lat. “vinum”). The Germanic tribal languages gained a considerable number of new words and were thus enriched. Latin words became the earliest group of borrowings in the future English language which was - much later - built on the basis of the Germanic tribal languages.
The fifth century A.D. Several of the Germanic tribes (the most numerous among them were the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes) migrated across the sea to the British Isles. There they were confronted by the Celts, the original inhabitants of the Isles. Through numerous contacts with the defeated Celts, the conquerors borrowed a number of Celtic words (bald, down, glen, bard, cradle). Especially numerous among the Celtic borrowings were place names, names of rivers, hills, etc.
The seventh century A.D. This century was significant for the christianization of England. Latin was the official language of the Christian church, and consequently the spread of Christianity was accompanied by a new period of Latin borrowings. Also, these new Latin borrowings were very different in meaning from the earlier ones. They mostly indicated persons, objects and ideas associated with church and religious rituals: e. g. priest (Lat. presbyter), bishop (Lat. episcopus), monk (Lat. monachus), nun (Lat. nonna), candle (Lat. candela). It was quite natural that educational terms were also Latin borrowings.
From the end of the 8th century to the middle of the 11th century England underwent several Scandinavian invasions. Here are some examples of early Scandinavian borrowings: call (v.), take (v.), cast (v.), die (v.), law (n.), husband(n.), window (n.), ill (adj.), loose, (adj.), low (adj.), weak (adj.). Some of Scandinavian borrowings are easily recognizable by the initial (sk-) combination. E. g. sky, skill, skin, ski, skirt.The
